Lil Louis Loses Half His Hearing But Vows To Carry On

Chicago house pioneer Lil Louis has revealed that he suffered permanent hearing damage to his left ear in January when a DJ tour manager fired a CO2 cannon blaster machine by his head as he sound-checked at Manchester’s Sankeys.

Writing on Facebook the French Kiss producer vowed to continue his DJing career, however, despite being permanently disabled.

“Difficult as this has been to fathom, I’ve excepted this as my new normal,” said Louis.

“I’ve considered walking away a thousand times . . . Until this morning when I was awakened by a voice that said, “You have a gift”.

“Hearing that voice, I realised the gift God gave me was not in my ears. It was where I’ve heard everything I ever created first, in my mind.

So for my father and everyone who prayed for me, I move ONWARDS . . . I will not stop,” he vowed.

“Even if I can only hear with one ear, I’ll play twice as loud, so you can feel it.”

The most common hearing condition afflicting DJs remains tinnitus, which forced Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter to quit for several years at the beginning of the noughties after developing serious tinnitus.

“I’ve given up because I want to protect my ears, music is too loud in clubs,” he told Mixmag in 2003.